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Old October 2nd 03, 02:44 AM
El Bastardo
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On 01 Oct 2003 23:14:32 GMT, nt (Gordon) wrote:

I have a wave file of a VN-era rescue going bad - a Jolly enters into a pick up
zone over a downed pilot and are promptly driven off by a blizzard of small
arms fire. The voices are professional but not entirely "calm" as they are in
direct fire from the enemy that they cannot see.

A pilot reacts to the sight of the H-2 getting raked as it pulls in over the
survivor and yells, "Get out of there buddy - you were recievin' fire that
time!" He replies stoicly, "We're takin' fire every time."

After a pause, he came back on the air, over the sound of his own
disintegrating helicopter, "We've been shot... out of the ... sky.." at which
point the transmission ends.

I think judging an entire Air Force's radio discipline and drawing conclusions
as to their professionalism based on the comments made during a combat
encounter is rather churlish, when its done from the comfort of a computer
chair in someone's home.

Gordon
====(A+C====
USN SAR Aircrew

"Got anything on your radar, SENSO?"
"Nothing but my forehead, sir."


And these guys were flying through flak at night. One or two crew see
tracers from behind, and the tail gunner shoots down a fighter, before
the rest of the crew really know what was going on.

Not quite the same thing as trying to land a helicopter in a hot LZ.

Not that it wasn't dangerous bombing Germany at night in WW2, it is
just that being scared and expressing it on the radio requires an
apprehension of immediate and unexpected danger. What the Brits were
doing, in all likelihood, they had done numerous times before. Most of
them didn't know about the fighter until it was going down. Not to
mention the specialist on the airplane recording what they were saying
on this funny disc cutter.